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'Yes, of course. Now may I proceed?' he asked silkily.
The derisive tone was a deliberate insult meant for her. She nodded her head in reply, not trusting herself to speak civilly to him. He reminded her of a sleek black jaguar, a predator waiting to leap on its unsuspecting prey. His sober navy business suit and conservative white shirt could not conceal the powerful muscled body or a certain aura of danger about him. The other men in the room faded into insignificance beside him.
'As I was saying, I think we can dispense with the official agenda. The only question we need to discuss is the financial state of the company and, in my opinion, not i/we call the receivers in, but when.'
CHAPTER FOUR
Katy turned shocked eyes to her father, fully expecting him to tell Jake he was crazy, but as Jake's deep voice droned on it slowly sunk in to her stunned brain that no one was going to stop him. She looked across the table at Mr Jeffries and John, but they avoided her eyes. Were they all mad? She felt like Alice in Wonderland at the Mad Hatter's tea-party, or maybe they had cast her in the role of the dormouse, she thought suddenly. Well, no way. She was going to have her say. Snapping open her briefcase, she withdrew a bundle of papers, and, waving them in her hand, she jumped to her feet.
'Now wait just a damn minute, Mr Granton. I can read a financial statement as well as the rest of you. Meldenton China makes a very reasonable profit. The order book is more than half full, and two days ago I personally lunched with Sheikh Hassan, the Sultan of Marin in the United Arab Emirates. He liked the design I presented for a new state dinner service and the sales department got confirmation of his order yesterday. There is no reason for the company to fold.' She smiled triumphantly at Jake, her green eyes flashing fire. 'I can only suggest you are suffering from a brainstorm,' she ended sarcastically.
Jake was lounging in the large hide chair, one hand toying with the papers on the table in front of him. He looked up at her, his eyes derisively raking her feminine frame with a blatant sexual thoroughness.
Katy could feel a flush of awareness spreading through her body at his insulting scrutiny, and a feeling of helplessness engulfed her as she stared at him; he looked dynamic and supremely masculine, his dark jacket taut over his broad shoulders. Why was it? Of all the men she had ever met, he was the only one to have such an instant effect on her.
She felt a tug on her arm—her father obviously wanted her to sit down. With a wry grimace she resumed her seat.
Jake's grim voice broke the lengthening silence. 'I suggest, Katy,' he cast her a hard, contemptuous smile, 'rather than wasting your superlative talents selling your designs to Sheikh Hassan,' he mocked, 'you should have persuaded him to buy two large virtually empty apartment blocks. I have no doubt with your attributes you could have sold the man sand,' he opined silkily.
Katy fumed at his implied insult, and the chuckles coming from across the table added fuel to her anger. 'At least I am not trying to wreck this company,' she bit out. 'Who the hell do you think you are, telling us what to do?'
In the ensuing silence one could have heard a pin drop. Katy, still furious, looked around the table, and every man avoided her eyes, except Jake. He watched her carefully, his dark gaze threatening, but spoke to her father.
'Shall I tell her, or will you, David?'
Katy turned to her father, and in the next fifteen minutes the bottom dropped out of her world. All her hopes for a new career shattered into a million pieces, as with mounting horror she listened to her father's stumbling explanation.
He had used the land on either side of the factory to enter the property market. With enormous loans he had started the construction company a few years previously; at the time property prices in London and in the Docklands in particular had been booming.
Bad luck, bad timing. Whatever her father called it, the bottom line was that by the time the apartment blocks were completed the market had slumped. Interest rates had doubled, making the loans virtually impossible to pay backhand with only a dozen of a total of eighty apartments sold they had reached crisis point.
Katy recognised the enormity of the problem, but she could not believe Meldenton China had to be sacrificed. Forcing herself to think clearly, and without emotion, she asked quietly, 'In view of the facts, surely only the property company is faced with liquidation, not Meldenton China?'
"The two are indivisible,' Jake said flatly.
Katy shot him a poisonous glance. 'A person could be forgiven for thinking it was your company, the way you have taken the chair, and done most of the talking,' she snapped.
An unholy gleam of triumph glittered in the depths of his dark eyes. 'A person could be right,' he drawled sarcastically. 'I hold the major vote.'
One look at her father's face and she knew Jake was telling the truth. 'How, Dad?' she demanded, shaking her head in disbelief. 'How could you?'
Jake answered for him. 'I think your father has had enough for one morning, Katy, and I know I have. So I suggest we adjourn this discussion until tomorrow.' Glancing around the table, he continued, 'Ten tomorrow suit?' Murmurs of agreement rippled around the table. 'Good.'
Katy stood up, shoving her chair back. She needed to get away, out of Jake's overwhelming presence, and try and make some sense of what had happened. More importantly she needed some answers from her father, who with unseemly haste was disappearing out of the room. How could he have allowed Meldenton to fall into Jake's
hands? It didn't make sense. But as she walked to the door Jake's hand on her arm stopped her.
'Wait, Katy.' He drew her to one side, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her upper arm, as he murmured polite adieus to the other two men.
An odd breathlessness afflicted her as he bent his dark head towards her, for a second she had the impression he was going to haul her into his arms and kiss her. 'Let go of me,' she demanded unsteadily.
'I will, but first I think you and I should have a talk. I can see by the expression on your lovely face that you are itching to chase after your father and badger him with questions he is in no condition to answer at the moment.'
'And whose fault is that, I wonder?' she declared furiously. Jake was an astute businessman with his finger on the pulse of the financial world. He must have known two months ago that the firm was in trouble.
She did not need Jake pointing out that her father had looked like a broken man when he'd left. She had recognised it, and half of her anger was directed at herself, and all her fear, confusion and frustration vented itself in a torrent of abuse against the man in front of her.
'You have stolen his company and trampled his pride in the dust. What is it with you? Some bloody Latin vengeance because-----' She was going to say 'because he married your girlfriend' but stopped herself, instead blustering, 'Because I wouldn't obligingly go to bed with you the other night and your masculine ego can't stand rejection, hmm? Well, I still own thirty per cent of this company and I intend to fight you every step of the way.' How, she had no idea, and for a fleeting instant she wondered if she would live to make good her threat.
